Month: June 2009

With so many people looking towards the day trading as a way to make money, it is really important to take some time and really learn what you are doing before you go diving into something that you are truly not prepared for. The overall benefits of successful day trading are quite large, though the consequences can be substantial as well. Learning the tips and tricks that will allow you to quickly start trading successfully will be beneficial since you will be able to avoid all of the problems and consequences that others experience without having as much difficulty as they have had as well.

It is very important to realize that day trading system is not simply lounging by a pool all day while you just look over your laptop every few minutes. The stock trading system field is extremely tense and many people who are involved with it find that it creates a large amount of stress in their normal daily lives. In order to really become the best day trader possible you need to have the nerves to actually handle these surges and drops in the market without panic setting in each time. The ability to stay calm is not something that everyone is gifted with, but it is absolutely critical to your actual success.

You should also realize that stock trading system will require some work on your part. Many people make the mistake of thinking that they can simply pick some stocks and that things will just work out all on its own. Life simply does not work this way in general and the stock trading systemespecially does not work this way. In order to get the very best options possible you need to take some time to carefully consider what you are getting yourself into. If you simply cannot believe or accept that you will actually have to put a significant amount of time and effort into day trading then it is a good idea to pass on the experience.

Many people have the problem of not realizing that stocks can change, rapidly. This means you absolutely must take the time and effort to carefully look at all of your options and carefully consider what you can do to improve things over all. This would consist of things such as carefully monitoring stocks that you are considering and other valuable pattern information. For example, if you have been watching companies stocks for several weeks and they tend to hover around the $30 a share mark you might want to jump and move quickly if the shares suddenly plunged to $5 each. However, you would want to also carefully look at information to make sure that you will not lose even at the $5 a share price, which can happen if the company went under suddenly.

Knowing the patterns that most stocks tend to follow can allow you to really maximize your potential profits. If you are consistently unaware of the prices that are normal you will find that it is extremely complicated to actually make a profit plus you are left with the disaster of struggling to get what you need together in time, because you are buried under a mountain of research. A good day trader will always have a wide range of knowledge and be constantly watching the market looking for key changes that can be extremely valuable to them and their actual stocks. Never believe for even a moment that you will not be able to make money, though you should also not believe that profits will simply drop into your lap.

If you are determined to make money in the day trading stocks, you can certainly succeed. However, there are things that you can do to make it much easier. Understanding the work involved and realizing that you will need to do ample research are great starting points and can be extremely useful as you are attempting to ensure you get the highest possible profits attainable. Never shy away from the work and you will find that getting those fabulous profits is not only easy, but quite quick to do as well.

With more foreclosures now than ever before, America’s weak real estate market seems to set new dismal records each month. However, opportunistic real estate investment professionals are turning the recession into great profits with a bit of creativity.

That opportunity is called Bulk REO Investing, and the potential is huge. Let’s take a moment to analyze the basics of this incredibly lucrative business.

When a home owner begins to miss payments on their mortgage, the lender begins to send late/overdue notices to the home owner. The lender directs the subsequent timing of the actual foreclosure proceedings. From that time through public auction is called ‘preforeclosure’.

When a defaulted property is placed up for auction, the foreclosure process is completed. If there are no buyers for the property at auction, the property is returned to the lender. The lender then categorizes the property as ‘Real Estate Owned’ – or ‘REO’ for short.

Local real estate agents are usually used to resale REO properties at retail price to the general public. But as a consequence of the weak economy, lenders are frequently selling their REO properties far below their actual value. But the price of receiving such great pricing is the need to purchase multiple REO properties (a ‘package’) rather than individual properties.

The recession in the United States has yielded huge profits to real estate investors prepared to take advantage. The most successful Bulk REO Investors will have a well-respected source of funding for their transactions. Some sources of funding for these transactions are: personal funds, hard money lenders, commercial lenders and non-conventional sources such as private investors and hedge funds.

Note – One of the nation’s leading experts on bulk reo investing is hedge fund manager Salvatore Buscemi. Sal Buscemi recognized the irrationality of the real estate boom of the late 1990’s and early 2000’s and capitalized on this by forming his very well-regarded hedge fund, Dandrew Capital Partners.

In order to provide for your retirement investing has become increasingly important over the years, as the future of social security benefits becomes unknown. There are of course many forms of investment, but the main two that are available to the average man in the street are real estate and stocks. If you are interested in investing in the stock market maybe you should read some of Warren Buffet books!.

It is a very normal need for men and women to want to insure their futures, and they know that if they are depending on Social Security benefits, and in some cases retirement plans, that they may be in for a rude awakening when they no longer have the ability. Investing wisely is the answer to the unknowns of the future because it has been shown that most people need much more money to live on in retirement that they think.

You may have been saving money in a low interest savings account over the years. Now, you want to see that money grow at a faster pace. Perhaps youve inherited money or realized some other type of windfall, and you need a way to make that money grow. Again, investing is the answer.

Leaving money a safe bank account earning maybe 5% a year, if you are lucky, is considered investing by many, but in general it’s a pretty poor deal, after accounting for inflation you are growing your money very little in real terms.

Investing is also a way of paying for the things that you want, such as a new home, a college education for your children, or expensive toys. Of course, your financial goals and timeline will determine what type of investing you do.

Trading stocks can also be a form of investing if you have a medium to long term outlook, but make sure that you get some good trading education 1st.

If you want or need to make a lot of money fast, you would be more interested in higher risk investing, which will give you a larger return in a shorter amount of time. If you are saving for something in the far off future, such as retirement, you would want to make safer investments that grow over a longer period of time.

The overall purpose in investing is to create wealth and security, over a period of time. It is important to remember that as you get older you will not always be able to earn an income you will eventually want to retire.

You also cannot count on the social security system to do what you expect it to do. As we have seen with Enron, you also cannot necessarily depend on your companys retirement plan either. So, again, investing wisely is the key to insuring your own financial future, but you must make smart investments.

When considering investments you have also got to be very carefull to avoid investment trading scams, things to look out for are unrealistic rates of return.

Bonds are one of the main stream types of investment along with stocks and real estate, and if you want to learn how to trade bonds make sure that you get a good education in the subject 1st. There are a number of important points that you must understand about bonds before you start investing in them. Not understanding these things may cause you to purchase the wrong bonds, at the wrong maturity date.

Like all investments it is important to learn about what you are investing in, and certainly don’t just take the advice given to you by a bond seller without checking it out 1st yourself. The three most important things that must be considered when purchasing a bond include the par value, the maturity date, and the coupon rate.

The par value of a bond refers to the amount of money you will receive when the bond reaches its maturity date. In other words, you will receive your initial investment back when the bond reaches maturity.

The maturity date is the date that the bond will reach its full value. On this date, you will receive your initial investment, plus the interest that your money has earned.

Corporate and State and Local Government bonds can be “called” before they reach their maturity, at which time the corporation or issuing Government will return your initial investment, along with the cash that it has earned thus far. Federal bonds cannot be “called”.

The coupon rate is the interest rate that you will receive when the bond reaches maturity. This number is written as a %, and you must use other information to find out what the interest will be. A bond that has a par value of say $2000, with a coupon rate of 5% would earn $100 per year until it reaches maturity.

Because bonds are not issued by banks, many people dont understand how to go about buying one. There are two ways this can be done.

You can use a broker or brokerage firm to buy them for you or you can go directly to the Government. If you use a brokerage, you will more than likely be charged a commission fee. If you want to use a broker, you should shop around for the lowest commissions!

Purchasing directly through the Government isnt nearly as hard as it once was. There is a program called Treasury Direct which will allow you to purchase bonds and all of your bonds will be held in one account, that you will have easy access to. This will allow you to avoid paying a broker or brokerage firm.

More advanced traders may try to buy and sell bonds to take advantage of the price movements, you can even swing trade them. But this is a very risky business if you don’t know what you are doing, you will need to take a swing trading course if this was something that wanted to, but again most people just buy and hold.

This is something that most people don’t even think about, but knowing what your risk tolerance and investment style are very important. This will help you choose investments that are more suited to you, and which the long run should do better as you will be less stressed about them and make fewer trading errors.

While there are many different types of investments that one can make, there are really only three specific investment styles, and those three styles tie in with your risk tolerance, these are conservative, moderate, and aggressive.

Naturally, if you find that you have a lowish tolerance for risk, your investment style will most likely be conservative or moderate at best. If you have a high tolerance for risk, you will most likely be a moderate or aggressive investor. At the same time, your financial goals will also determine what style of investing you use.

If you are saving for retirement in your early twenties, you should use a conservative or moderate style of investing, but if you are trying to get together the funds to buy a home in the next year or two, you would want to use an aggressive style. Being an active stock market trader would be considered an aggressive style for most people.

Conservative investors want to make sure that they maintain their initial capital and make very modest gains per year, they want to sleep well at night. In other words, if they invest $5000 they want to be sure that they will get their initial $5000 back. This type of investor usually invests in blue chip stocks and bonds and short term money market accounts. But remember trading stocks, even if they are blue chips can still be very risky as we have seen in the 2008/9 bear market.

An interest earning savings account is very common for conservative investors. A moderate investor usually invests much like a conservative investor, but will use a portion of their investment funds for higher risk investments. Many moderate investors invest 50% of their investment funds in safe or conservative investments, and invest the remainder in riskier investments.

An aggressive investor is willing to take risks that other investors wont take. They invest higher amounts of money in riskier ventures in the hopes of achieving larger returns  either over time or in a short amount of time. Aggressive investors often have all or most of their investment funds tied up in the stock market.

Again, determining what style of investing you will use will be determined by your financial goals and your risk tolerance. No matter what type of investing you do, however, you should always carefully research the investment and never invest without having all of the facts.

If you think you are an aggressive investor and intend to trade stocks activily, make sure that you learn how to trade before making your 1st stock purchase.

Every brainchild of human thought seems to be inevitably fraught with complications, especially when money is mixed in. It pains one to visualize the inner workings of something like the stock market, especially now that the world is besieged by global economic and financial recession. Many companies are struggling to be rid of the vise grip of the crisis that has already claimed many others, not just any companies, but known ones. With such influential organizations rising and falling, stock traders need all the help they can get trying to make sense of stock market figures that might some might even try their luck in automated trading via stock software.

Putting a computers excellent data gathering and analysis skills to use, stock market software is one of the more useful things that had come out of the mesh of the World Wide Web that has today become commonplace. Such software range from simple observational systems that collect and organize data to analysis programs that analyze the collected figures to decision making software that forecasts trends in the market and buys and sells accordingly based on the gathered and analyzed data. The data observation and gathering plus the analysis parts make such stock trading software virtual assistants to stock traders and are quite accurate and useful. But the decision making software is rather dubious.

It may be true that a computer is the best machine to analyze such twisted data as stock market figures and also best suited for performing the analysis based on a predefined principle or theorem like fundamental or technical analysis, but it is also true that the stock market can at times be beyond logic. One example of such an irrational instance is the stock market crash of 1987 where the Dow Jones Index dropped 22.6% for no probable reason. None logical, at least. Even if computers were observing the trends before the crash and were making forecasts thereafter they could not have been able to predict such an outlier. This is still the case today. No computer can accurately forecast an outlier possibility in a Normal distribution of trends and in so doing take advantage of it. Furthermore, the Efficient Market Hypothesis of Professor Eugene Fama effectively negates a computers potential to break the bank, or in this case, beat the market. Stating that it is not possible to consistently outperform the market from information from the market, though the hypothesis has its drawbacks and contenders, is sound enough to ring true for the case of a investment management software.

Finally, there is the psychological aspect wherein a computer cant predict human over or under reaction that can cause over or under pricing. In the end, though computers are undoubtedly excellent in observation and analysis, humans should still have the final say.

When it comes to investing money, there are thousands of schools of thought, opinions and viewpoints. Notwithstanding those who dismiss it, investing is an actual skill which is successful when practiced in the correct manner. Investment Research

It isn’t advisable to make investments according to just emotion or impulse. This is YOUR money, after all, and you don’t want to lose it. Making sure to do the proper research prior to investing is the most critical step in the process. Strategic Forecast

scientific and historical research that is required to really understand the subject of investing in three dimensions. These five aspects are essential when deducing where to invest your income. Investment Prediction

{Pillar 1, Technical.} This is where you analyze the patterns of the world markets by statistics. If you can see these patterns clearly you can then predict what the markets will do over time. Just this one pillar could be the basis of an entire article, but this is just a tip to get you at least looking in the right direction before investing.

{Pillar 2, Economic Trends.} This methodology, similar to Pillar 1, is a statistical analysis tool, however its target is economics. At this point you should answer questions for yourself like what is going on with the global economy? What are the current fashions and designs? you can then predict what the markets will do over time. What are the long term trends and what are the short term trends. By finding out this information, you can start to rule out areas of poor trends.

{Pillar 3, Politics.} From your study of Pillars 1 and 2, what politcal climate exists in the potential areas of profitability discovered? Find this out, as well as other relevant information like changes in leadership, wars and other conflicts internally or between/among nations. The economy and market conditions of a nation are definitely affected by what is going on there, politically. So it’s significant information to gather to give you an overall world view and a correct estimation for future or present savings.

{Pillar 4, Geo Politics.} In this division of your examination you will be look at global power, and analyzing world topography, history and social discipline and looking for patterns. What is the influence of the past and topography of the place on associations with different nations? From a geographic outlook this ties in very closely to Pillar 3.

{Pillar 5, Solar Geography.} This pillar is related to Pillar 4, but at this point you’d be investigating historical events from the perspective of meteorology, oceanography and seismology, and how these subjects affect the conditions of the planet and specific countries, and thus the economy of the countries.

There is a lot of technical, scientific and historical research that is required to really understand the subject of investing in three dimensions. But that’s what separates the great investors from everyone else. You only have two choices if you want to excel in the subject, they are study, study and lastly learn it for yourself. Otherwise, you have to do some homework to locate an expert in this field. Make sure that they take care of it for you. In either case, it can be an exciting and rewarding subject when done properly.

Most entry level traders would hire online brokers to handle their day trading tasks. Online brokers is relatively cheaper and within anyones reach Anyone with an internet connection and a credit card can acquire one. The major disadvantage of online brokerage is the fact that it promotes slow order execution Speed is of the essence in trading. A trader should have a system that can order and place trades on the dot if he or she wants to succeed. Upon recognizing this fact, an experience trader would usually turn to direct access trading systems instead of ordering through online brokers. Direct access trading can make things a lot easier when you are getting into the stock market for beginners.

Immediate execution of orders is the key factor for day trading success. Direct access trading eliminates the need for a middleman, which in this case is the online broker. The absence of this middleman can save timefrom several seconds to several minutes. This is because direct access trading, as the term implies, allow traders to order directly from a client or a market maker who is actually working on the floor of the stock exchange. Traders can save time since the orders are no longer executed by online brokers. One you’ve mastered the stock market basics things get easier quickly, then you can move onto things like beginners forex trading.

Another reason why you should opt for direct access trading system is the fact that online brokers may also be clients of market makers. The tendency is that when executing orders, online brokers would not choose market makers that offer the best price. Instead, they would trade with their clients to earn commission. This acceptable practice in financial trading wherein brokers get commissions from executing orders to their market maker clients is known as payment for order flow. With direct access trading, the trader can choose the market maker that provides the best price.

Another reason why direct access trading seems to be costlier is the fact that online brokers receive commission from payment for order flow. Because they earn more from market makers, they can now afford to offer cheaper rates to traders. On the other hand, commissions from direct access traders are scaled depending on the number of trades a trader execute for a specific time period. Commission rates for each trade may fall within $15 to $35. In addition, most direct access trading system providers would charge for the use of their software. This additional payment falls within $250 to $300 per month. Some firms waive the software fees if the trader makes a certain number of trades, most of the time falling within 50 to 300 per month.

Direct access trading systems available in the market vary based on commission rates, accuracy and speed of order execution. A trader must carefully choose the trading system that suits their needs in terms of price, performance and speed.

We are all experiencing difficult times nowadays and almost everyone can feel it. Due to this, a lot of individuals are looking for extra ways to earn cash. Many people keep two jobs to make use of their extra hours and not waste a single hour doing nothing unproductive. Another truth that one can say or observe is that many people want to earn extra money the easy or the fastest way possible, possibly without breaking a sweat. Definitely, there are those who will use this hunger for money as an advantage.

These people are swindlers who offer stock charting software programs that guarantee easy money. All these swindlers promise that their years of experience has helped them develop a mechanism that will calculate what stocks are bad and what stocks are going down the drain in the stock market world. According to them, the programs they designed are robots that will buy and sell on behalf of the owners who bought the programs. This program will also tell you from what companies you need to buy shares.

If you will look at their advertisements, they make things seem so easy. In reality, these stock analysis software programs are a bunch of lies. Logically speaking, and to begin with, one wouldn’t have sold these programs if they really work. The reason being is that they should only be the ones to have those gadgets and as a result, they will only be the rich people in the world. If these programs really work, we should expect the tycoons of the business sector to use these programs themselves to know what stocks to buy and sell. The truth is, these stock software programs will not make you rich instantly.

The stock market is a place where you need to do real battle. It is every country’s economic battle ground of the modern times for survival. These forex signal software programs can help you analyze trends and show you the current numbers in the market. However, you as the share holder should still be the one to decide. This is the reason you need to be an expert in this field. This is the reason you need to buy newspapers and watch the news. You need to correlate global incidents and activities with how the stocks will rise and fall.

Be wise and do not be fooled by these scammers sending solicitation emails, persuading you to try one of their products. They may seem real and honest in their advertisements. However, simple common sense will dictate that these software programs are really not going to deliver its intended purpose. If these programs are for real, then no one should be seeing or experiencing poverty of the world.

I had just finished posting an article named A Black Swan Named Swine Flu when I came across an insightful article by James Howard Kunsler that adds his always interesting view on the swine flu issue.

As James Kunsler and I both point out no one at this stage knows how the Swine Flu outbreak will develop. It may turn out to be a fairly minor public health concern, especially in Mexico, and then fade away, or it may turn into a world wide pandemic with terrifying consequences for all. With any viral outbreak the potential is there for it to become as serious as the 1918 flu pandemic that killed somewhere between 30 million to 100 people. That was out of a world population that at the time was about 1.7 billion.

Of course, we now have medicines and medical facilities that were non existent in 1918. But we also have about 6.6.5 billion people on this planet, many of them living in densely packed urban centers, like Mexico City. A viral infection spreading among a densely packed population could grow at an alarming rate. Especially if the virus is a new strain, as the swine flu virus is, and there are no vaccines really for immediate use.

Another danger in our modern highly mobile world is that international travel is frequent and fast. Airlines can transport you to just about any other spot on the planet within 30 hours. Air travel is a vital part of the world’s transportation system with huge numbers of people moved about every day. If there is one infected person on an airplane there is a good chance that at least a few fellow passengers will become sick shortly after completing the flight.

About ten years ago I flew to the Philippines on vacation and became seriously ill about two days after checking into the hotel in Cebu. I recovered just in time to catch my return flight two weeks later. What a vacation that was. Almost all of it was spent in bed at the hotel wondering if I would survive. I’m sure that I was exposed to the flu on the aircraft during the 13 hour leg of the flight to Manila. If this swine flu outbreak becomes pandemic you do not want to fly off to anywhere.

It is still too early to know how the swine flu is going to impact us and the world economy. For sure, airline and travel related stocks, like hotels, are already taking a beating. If it becomes apparent that the swine flu will become widespread and is a deadly killer then the hope of an early recovery in the world economy and stock markets will be crushed.

Based upon research found so far on the Swine Flu outbreak since it is so late in the flu season it is likely the the outbreak will fizzle out as warmer wheather occurs and will then come back with a vengence in the fall and winter. This was the pattern of the 1918 pandemic and probably is the one that is most likely to occur this year. So the Swine Flu Black Swan may prove to be just as deceptive as the Bear Market. Just when once again you are feeling pretty good about the outlook it comes in for the kill.